Easter Reflection

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We can tell intuitively that the most dominant stories framing our lives everyday are too empty and too unjust to be what life is all about. AND we can also tell intuitively when a story comes along that does capture what life is all about! Vince presents the New Testament's story of The Resurrection as one such story...

SPEAKER NOTES

Easter Reflection

This year for my Easter Reflection, I’ve been thinking about the power of stories.

  • Stories frame our lives.

  • The stories a people or a culture tell and pass on and reproduce show what we care about, the questions we’re asking, what preoccupies us.

  • For better or for worse

  • And what’s the most prevalent, most prized type of story the average person in an American city interacts with on a day-to-day basis today? - Advertisements! - A 30-second 2025 Super Bowl ad cost $8 million! - The average American sees something between 4 and 10 thousand ads a day! - All of them inviting us into a little story.

  • So I took a survey this week of advertisements I interacted with… Get a load of these stories that framed Holy week for me… - TV ad for a department store — “Do something for yourself! You deserve it!” — that is: all these new items we’re selling! — Classic ad right? Starts with something that feels like a deeper value — “take care of your self” — BUT then the conceit is inevitably “buy new stuff!” THAT’s the story of taking care of yourself - Podcast ad for an investment banker — “Maybe being rich isn’t about a number. Find your rich.” — Again, starts with something that feels like a deeper value — “maybe your story isn’t about being rich” — mmm, yes… but then the conceit is inevitably “but actually it is; it’s just your rich” - From coffeeshop’s email — “Iced lemon loaf is the moment” — really, aren’t all of our life stories split into “before the iced lemon loaf” and “after the iced lemon loaf”? There’s no more logical way to structure the timeline of life - Notification for a language-learning app — “Oh no, you’re falling behind!” — Ahh! I am! This app is right. I gotta catch up, or else!… Or else… what? Actually, the rest of the story is pretty hazy, but I just know that I feel anxiety, like it's “catch up, or else!” - Podcast ad for a Productivity suite — “Optimize everything!” — your work, your life, your self: optimize it all with our product! Because we know you're so busy and important, and now you can be so busy and important AND awesome. You want to be awesome too, right? Of course you do! There you go: Starts with flattery and understanding, right? YES! I am busy and important; thank you for noticing! No one ever does. But what’s the resolution of the story? Optimizing my life so I can win at busy and important!

What’s the story of “a good life” all these ads are framing for me? Like what’s the arc? What’s the plot of “the good life” according to the 4 to 10 thousand ads I interacted with per day this last week?

  • Achievement — of personal heroics or of some truer version of myself
  • Entitlement — to newness and constant stimulation
  • Winning and optimization

When we get a momentary break from the constant barrage, the intuitive truth that we all know is…

  • These stories are way too empty and alienating to be “the good life”
  • They are way too consumeristic, way too individualistic to be what life is all about.
  • They are too rigid and too unforgiving.
  • They are too whitewashing of how life really works, how society works, how power flows, - how a white person’s experience in this culture will NOT be the same as a black person’s experience, - how a man’s experience in this culture will NOT be the same as someone who is not a man, - how the supposed “freedom” of the individual to choose their own way and make their own work in an increasingly-top heavy global economy is maybe more an unjust burden than it is an exciting freedom.
  • Most find that Life inevitably testifies against these stories.
  • But, because they frame so much of our lives, - When that happens, we’re forced to ask again... - Perhaps with more desperation… - What is the story of “a good life”?

And what about God? Where is God? -- when life testifies to the emptiness and injustice of so many of the stories that frame our lives… Where is God?

  • Do emptiness and injustice mean there is no God? Do they mean God is asleep on the job? Do they mean God is punishing us?
  • The seeds of this questioning, Where is God? (which we ask so much today), we might actually trace to the unique legacy of the people from whom Jesus came, the ancient Hebrews, whose God was strange and different.
  • The Hebrew’s description of their God had many tribal features (like the gods of other ancient Mediterranean peoples) but, above all, their God was a God of justice and love, - unlike the gods of other ancient Mediterranean peoples, who were only tribal-warrior gods; - unlike the eventually culturally-dominant Greco-Roman gods, who were gods of power and ego — if you wanted to talk justice or love with the Greeks or Romans you went to philosophers, not to the gods (Have you read any stories about Zeus or Jupiter?! Justice and love are far from their primary interests.)
  • Life feeling unfair or cruel or flat or empty was no scandal to the divine from a Greco-Roman perspective — if you asked “where is God?” the answer was, “Who knows? The gods are playing their own game. We’re just pawns on their chessboard.”
  • BUT the emptiness and injustice of life was a scandal for the Ancient Hebrews, who believed in a God of justice and love.
  • And so this tradition from which Jesus came teaches people to ask “Where is God?” - We just had a whole day in the Church Calendar devoted to it — Good Friday.
  • That hard, unsettling question, if you’ve ever asked it, is NOT off limits or inappropriate in the Jesus Tradition! It is EXACTLY the question of Jesus and Jesus’ people; it is deeply Biblical to ask.

The New Testament is, in a way, a story of the development of an honoring response to the question “where is God?" — an attempt to paint a picture of a God who is not mysteriously behind injustice and despair but is with humanity in spite of them…

And what a story!

  • The Prologue to the New Testament story — the flashback that sets the stage - In the few centuries before Jesus and the events of the New Testament, the Hebrews are, for the fifth and sixth times in their history, conquered by massive, dominating Empires - These two the most brutal on record — perfecters of war and cruelty — - Alexander the Great’s Greek Empire, - and then The Roman Empire of Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar - And against that backdrop of new levels of oppression and violence, new levels of asking “where is God?”, - a hope emerges among Hebrew prophets and poets and artists (because it always starts there)… - What they called “the Resurrection” - (What eventually becomes reason for our gathering today) - If there is a God of Justice, of Goodness, then one day, at the end of time, God will wipe every tear from every eye, the bodies of our beloved dead will be raised so we can see them again, and God will rule (instead of those who have dominated us unjustly and cruelly), and God will raise the dead and downtrodden of all creation to something new. - As the Prophet Daniel put it, >>> Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, [the downtrodden] to everlasting life and [the unjust] to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:2)

  • Unfortunately, in Western cultures like America, churches usually skip this prologue when trying to tell the story of Resurrection on Easter, and, as a result, - Turn Easter into a pep-rally for Jesus, as though he needs a yearly reminder that he’s special, and you better be one of the people telling him! - Resurrection, to the Ancient Hebrews, was NOT about celebrating one individual, - It was NOT about there being justice and meaning for one individual - In skipping the prologue, Western culture has confused Resurrection with another Ancient concept — Ascension — when a hero was so extraordinary, rather than die normally like everyone else, they would ascend to the heavens above, where the ancient world imagined the divine. - Moses and Elijah were heroes in the Hebrew tradition, said to have ascended. Romulus, the founder of Rome, was a hero in the Roman tradition, said to have ascended. - But the celebration of an individual hero was not the point of the Ancient Hebrew hope of The Resurrection - The point was a universal human longing: a picture of hope for all creation, justice and meaning for all creation. - That background in place, we move to…

  • The First Act of the New Testament story - the meat of the plot - Jesus bursts on to the scene, formed by the hope of The Resurrection of all (justice and meaning for all), even when some Hebrews (the Sadducees) cynically scoffed at it, and he teaches his image of God: - God isn’t a controlling tyrant out for “what God wants”; God is a loving parent who provides. - And God’s household is all of creation. >>> "Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?… How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11) - Jesus says: Join our Loving Parent God in bringing about the justice and meaning we’re longing for — right now! - Nonviolently resist your oppressors, with demonstration and countercultural hospitality, - Love your neighbor, heal the sick, care for the outcast, - Enact communally for yourselves the fair economic distribution that the Empire won’t provide for you in its negligence and lust for control. - His message was so radical, that he is executed by the Empire on Good Friday - Again everyone asks despairingly: Where is God?

  • But, then… The Second Act of the Story — the climax - Somehow, Jesus’ message doesn’t die… it gets stronger; - People begin to have visions of this Jesus, whom the Empire executed. - And not just people who met him in life; beyond that; people like the Apostle Paul, who never met Jesus in the flesh, begin to have unexplainable spiritual experiences in which Jesus comes to them, changing the course of their stories. - How was this?! The Roman Empire had well-documented, long-tested procedures for killing radical messages, and they followed what should have worked… - If you were a violent radical, they rounded up all of your followers and crucified everyone, and that obviously put an end to things - If you were a non-violent radical, they crucified you, but never needed to deal with the followers because these messages would always die without their leader - But, here is this one nonviolent radical Jesus whose message didn’t die with him at his crucifixion. It's getting stronger.

  • Which brings us to the Third Act of the New Testament Story - Paul, in his letters the two decades after Jesus’ execution (which would become much of the New Testament), connects Jesus back to that Hebrew hope of the previous three centuries — for the Resurrection - For every tear to be wiped from every eye - For the beloved dead to be honored - For the arrogant to be brought down, and the humble to be exalted - Maybe this is why Jesus’ message lives on, why so many of us are experiencing him in visions. Because Jesus is risen... like our hope for all our beloved dead to be risen!… maybe it’s begun! - He calls Jesus "the first fruits" of The Resurrection. >>> Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have died. (1 Corinthians 15:20) - And this is like the twist in the story the Ancient Hebrews didn’t see coming, but that brings everything into focus. - The hopeful picture of the Resurrection isn't an “end time” thing; it's an “in time” thing! - It's not all at once; it’s a process we participate in. - A process obviously not yet concluded (there’s still plenty of emptiness and injustice and death), - But take heart, Paul says, because Jesus shows it is underway! - Emptiness, injustice, and even death do not have to have the final say.

I wonder what you think of the New Testament story, in comparison to the 4 to 10 thousand other stories you’ll interact with the rest of today through ads?

What’s the story of “a good life” this frames for us? What’s the arc? What’s the plot of “the good life”?

  • Not individual heroics, not endless stimulation, not optimization, not winning.
  • Rather a fuller story, that includes and doesn’t try to run from or whitewash the very real threats of life — emptiness and injustice and death (“sin, law, and death” to use Paul’s language in the Bible)
  • A story that faces those down
  • Participating in an in-process Hope that those threats do not have to have the final say.

Does this not ring so much truer as the story of “a good life”? Does this not ring so much truer to our experiences of feeling most alive?

We may not have ever used the same language as the Ancient Hebrews, but we all know this in-process Hope they called The Resurrection — intuitively, yes?

  • My most zoomed out view of American culture sometimes feels so dehumanizing I can hardly bear it, - BUT THEN somehow, beautifully, when I zoom all the way in on my most local friendships and communities, I see people bearing one another’s loads, caring for one another’s needs, standing in the gaps for each other. - I know intuitively that emptiness and injustice do not have to have the final say!
  • Or I think of when my uncle called me after my aunt died this last year - To a degree that was new for our relationship, he got vulnerable with me: that he felt like he had no idea what to do for planning a memorial or celebration of life. - He’d never done this before, and especially as they weren’t particularly religious, he decided to call me, his pastor nephew, because, as he said to me, “I’m guessing you’ve been through a lot of these things.” - But, as we talked about it more and more over the course of a week, he found that he did know what to do, intuitively — - He did know what to say, how to get people telling stories about my aunt, - And he knew there needed to be music: my aunt's favorite Bruce Springsteen. - And what was the Bruce Springsteen song he asked my wife Keziah and me to prepare for the time? - The song “I'll see you in my dreams" - (I’m not a big Springsteen fan myself, but he played this song at the 20yr memorial of 9/11) - It’s beautiful and melancholic, except one line where the melody is triumphantly sung: - “For death is not the end!” - My uncle knew that intuitively.

The challenge, of course, is keeping these stories we know in the foreground of our lives, when there are 4 to 10 thousand noisier, less-worthy stories grabbing at our attention.

  • I need the communal rhythm that this church provides me — week in, week out, reminding me of the in-process-ness of hope — not yet fully concluded, but very much a reality! - Alone, I cannot keep that rhythm for myself. I believe that is probably true for all of us.
  • And I need regular spiritual experience, like Paul had with the Risen Jesus. The autopilot of my American life will not form me in the direction of hope, justice, and meaning. - But what has? The unexplainable moments I’ve had in prayer of feeling I am not alone, there is a God of Justice and Love who is with me. - I wonder if that also is a need for all of us? There is no better day than Easter to open yourself to that sort of experience.

Prayer

1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Acts, Luke, DanielVincent BrackettComment